DWR Award Non-fiction Finalist Ayelet Polter

This week’s Writer Wednesday is DWR Award finalist Ayelet Polter from Southfield, MichiganI!

Ayelet is by trade a medical esthetician with a knack for non-fiction writing. She has recently discovered that her voice matters and that she needs to start showing up for herself and for anyone who might be helped by hearing what she has to say or by just seeing her try new things. 

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What is your favorite part of the writing process?

My favorite part of the writing process is being a channel for whatever wants to come through my pen and the surprise and delight I feel when I see what comes through.  

What does your writing workspace look like?

My writing space is cozy. I write at a dark mahogany desk with an antique lamp, the walls are the color of cabernet and it is such a wonderful warm space when it's snowing outside. There's a charity box on my desk, and before I write in the morning I drop a few coins in to remind myself that I always have something to give and that my contribution is needed. There is a small clock keeping time which makes my workspace sound very homey. There's a very special vintage photo of my great grandmother handing a baby (my mother to my grandmother), photos of my husband singing and drumming, and canvases of my children above the desk. Like I said, it's cozy.

What part of writing non-fiction do you enjoy the most?

What I love most about non-fiction is that it can feel like a real and intimate conversation with someone fascinating. If the subject is one that lights the author up and makes the author feel alive, that's transmitted to the page. You know those times when you can't put a book down and you read it cover to cover in one sitting...It feels like the author spent the whole afternoon in your living room pouring out her soul. What comes from the heart goes to the heart.

What is your favorite non-writing hobby?

I love home and garden design, I dabble with painting and I like to read and write all year round.

What is your favorite piece of writing advice?

My favorite piece of writing advice: Know your voice matters. Trust the process. Don't try to be impressive or sound like you know a lot or be so perfect. Just say something true. It doesn't have to be new, just coming from you. Your lens and experience is a unique one that has never existed before you and will never come again after you. Your perspective can literally be medicine for others, so trust that.  

What writing projects are you currently working on?

I'm currently writing about what the vintage photo on my desk represents to me: generational bonds, motherhood, home, children and what we choose to pass onto the next generation. I'm thinking of calling it “The Letters Under my Mother's Bed.”